Aftermathematics
by kheelwithit
Summary: The messiest part of war is the aftermath. The messiest part of romance is the aftermath. The messiest part of power is the aftermath.
1. Chapter 1

[Hakuryuu won't live if he stays here. ]

Alibaba doesn't think much further than that, his mind is preoccupied with the sight of his best friend in the black sand and the pain in his body drains away to his chest, where it pulls so tight that he sobs and his bones are rattling in your skin. Hakuryuu, so covered in red, might not live in the long run even if he lives now, for all of his wounds. Alibaba's lips shape his name and his sore throat aches with the vibration. Hakuryuu doesn't answer. The handful of dolls in your arms clunk to the dirt. He thought he was- that he was _fine_ after he finished the battle, thought that he was _okay_ to go scouting for cleanup and damage control, but the blood is roaring in your Alibaba's head and he can't hear anything else, his feet are unsteady.

He moves, weakly at first, and then still weakly, but quicker across the sand dunes, to where Hakuryuu's body is starting to be buried underneath them. The sand covers most of the damage, and Alibaba doesn't care to reveal it. He clutches Hakuryuu close to his body. Hakuryuu's head lolls on his shoulder and tears drip onto his stomach, washing away a few grains of sand. The extra weight makes standing harder.

Alibaba's stomach turns, he exhales and his bones shake, he looks back at into his arms and hauls Hakuryuu away from the battlefield, and probably justice.

He doesn't want to think about that though, he's busy helping his friend.

There's not much of anywhere to _go_ , that's the worst part about it all. If it had been a matter of finding a hiding spot _before_ the battle, Alibaba could have hidden in the blink of an eye, his golden hair could have vanished against the mountainous green backdrop of the Tenzan plateau and he and Hakuryuu's body wouldn't ever be found until they revealed themselves on their own. But now, Alibaba sticks out like an opened treasure chest in this black sand, the mark of a space that's been drained of rukh, something that they all did: Kouen, Sinbad, Muu, himself, everyone, in their fight.

The only thing that's keeping Alibaba from being overcrowded with people who're searching for the number one priority is the distance they put between themselves; searching for the bodies of Hakuryuu's brainwashed people, searching for little matryoshka dolls to make sure that this won't happen again, _searching for Hakuryuu himself_.  
But soon enough, that distance will be closed, they'll all rendezvous and make camp and Hakuryuu's body- Alibaba repositions Hakuryuu over his shoulder and scans the skies again- won't be there.

Alibaba won't be there either, he supposes.

With whatever's left of him scraped close, and his magi to lend him strength, Alibaba summons Amon.


	2. Chapter 2

It's ah… it's hard to keep going. Hakuryuu's weight reminds him that he has to: Alibaba could say that nothing reminds him that he has to _stop_ too, though it'd mean blowing aside how his vision has been tunneling for the past two hours, the bulging veins along his body coupling with the fact that he has to remind his body to breathe, one inhale and one exhale at a time until the throbbing in his brain makes him forget for a second and Alibaba seizes with panic and his head is rushed with a headache so bad that he swears he's going to split in _two._ Hakuryuu starts to slip, his arm dangles and Alibaba screams, clutching at him again, pulling him close with tears in his eyes from the pain and his body is _losing_ _it_ \- the djinn equip, Amon is falling away from him, the flames are extinguished and he sucks in air, tries to struggle against gravity, scrambling to make his body pull in _more_ because there _is_ more, Aladdin's magoi- It's _his_ fault, _he's_ finally shutting down, _Alibaba's_ _body can't take anymore_ and the last of Amon fades away, the _earrings_ fade away and his stomach launches into his throat as gravity closes in because there's just nothing left to stop it. Alibaba's body tries to fight it still and he flails, and his only presence of mind left is Hakuryuu _._

Alibaba's becoming increasingly breathless and his face stings with cold and his hair whips around him and he does his best to curl Hakuryuu up to himself, and hold him still for the imminent impact with the water below and Gods help them if the water is too shallow.

He has to let go of Hakuryuu on impact, it hits like a brick over the head and he repeats to himself on the way down

[bodies float, bodies float, bodies float, bodies floa-]

The impact with the waves knocks the breath out of Alibaba and it turns out that he would have let go of Hakuryuu regardless of whether he wanted to or not. The water isn't shallow at all. And it's not cold either, just lukewarm but it stings on all of his wounds and in his eyes and another task to add to the list of impossibilities is completed with nothing but willpower. Alibaba's body can't do much but weakly kick in a meager excuse for swimming and he'd be afraid of drowning if all the salt in the water didn't make it so easy to float. Hakuryuu, though, his body's in danger, he's not- Alibaba thrashes weakly and his golden eyes search the green blue at at the surface and then further down, where the blue turns deeper, but never quite black, he can see the pallor of Hakuryuu's skin, sinking further as his body thrashes, purely out of instinct from the water he's breathing in.

Alibaba's lungs force him to make a choice.

Go down now and risk drowning or-

He's diving down, stretching out his hand to him before he registers that there's a second option. The stretch of Alibaba's arm isn't quite enough and he's _afraid_ for seconds as long as years as he tries to make his body sink instead of tug upward, fights the urge to breathe while his heart attempts CPR from the inside of his chest and Alibaba's lungs are past burning and only Hakuryuu's miserable flailing arm is lucky enough to flounder close enough for Alibaba to grab in the water. He pulls him close with everything he has and Alibaba hopes they'll both make it to the surface in time.

Kicking, Hakuryuu's body is kicking at Alibaba while he's kicking at the water, it's a question of where the buoyancy in the water went because now he can't seem to get to the surface fast enough for it and Alibaba shoves Hakuryuu up ahead of him, glimpsing the reflection of the sun off the water, the distortion it makes while looking at the sky from below and he breaks above the waves. The air filling his lungs almost hurts as bad as holding it out and a rush hits you, lightheaded, you wave your arms about, treading to find Hakuryuu's struggles lessened, Alibaba shoves him over his shoulder, smacks him on the back, again, again, again until he coughs it up, and the struggling stops and a fear he didn't want to acknowledge was there vanishes.

Dead bodies don't cough up water.

That's something at least.

In the waves and water, where Alibaba's toes don't hit the sand unless his head's a good four feet under water, all of Alibaba's newly accumulated issues smack him in the face.

A mouthful of salt water swiftly follows and drowning is the latest danger to war with. Alibaba's first solution is to get to shore.

Mostly, he's just floating and doggie paddling to get there. The sandy shore starts to look like heaven and by the time his knees come out of the water, Alibaba shoves Hakuryuu away from him, face up and staring at the sky. Alibaba's used his last bit of strength for that, so he gets a little sand in his mouth when he faceplants in dirt. But hey, it's less lethal than anything that's happened to him in the past sixteen hours, his choice or otherwise.

Alibaba goes to sleep for a little bit… It'll be okay to rest for a little while, after all.

* * *

Getting up is an ordeal, but it's beautiful. The tide is what wakes him up, it laps at his toes, warmer than he remembers it being and a little wonderful hermit crab, a _live_ and _lively_ miracle of _life_ , scuttles across his vision, digging a hole, clawful of sand by clawful of sand. It's nighttime. the sand is white instead of peach in the moonlight. Drawing your hand up to push yourself over is like bending wood, and bend it you do, till your elbow makes a horrible cracking sound that people associate with inordinately old age. You turn over, Hakuryuu is still there. his lips looking blue and pitch hair clinging in whorls all over skin that's whiter than the sand. Hakuryuu's chest moves up and down, slightly. He's beautiful too. His hand is ice cold when you take it and you hope that your hand might make him a bit warmer.

It's probably because you've just survived one of the hardest days of your life, but you cry when you see the stars twinkling and you think it's all beautiful anyways. You hold Hakuryuu's hand a little tighter.  
All of it.

Alibaba watches the sky until it turns grey in the predawn and people- fishermen, they have nets- poke about. Well, poking about is the wrong thing to say, Alibaba thinks, slowly getting to his knees. That insinuates that they don't belong, but it _is_ their home. Now that it's getting light out, he can see the docks a few yards down and he's sure that'll be where the fishermen are. An equal distance in the opposite direction hosts a path, nearly hidden by a bunch of rocks. Alibaba looks at Hakuryuu- then the path between the rocks- then the fishermen.

Really, he hasn't many other choices.

He picks up Hakuryuu yet again and if things weren't the way they were, he'd shout at his friend for making him carry him so far, but… Hakuryuu isn't the safest person to be around right now, probably… The souring in his stomach is a mix of hunger and a warning not to think of that again.

Alibaba is very quiet, steps in the waves so he doesn't leave footprints and wades down to the rocks, up to the path.

Up the path is a house. A shack, really. Honestly, a shed that's just tucked into a conveniently smooth edge of a boulder that shields the house from the fishermen below, but not a small village that it overlooks. The roof is missing thatching in too many places and the only sources of light are the front and back doors and the holes in the ceiling. There's no plaster and the clay walls have had holes worn in them in so many places that you might as well say it's very shoddy jaali art. But nobody seems to have come here for quite a while, so that's good.

The people below might see him when he's going up, but as long as they don't know about his unconscious cargo, it's safe enough, all in all, to make Alibaba feel kinda okay and out of danger when he leans Hakuryuu's body down gently against a sunny corner and dries him with some coarse cloth from a jar in the corner as gently as he can so he won't be sick.

He justifies the compassionate touch, the- the everything with the fact that Hakuryuu can't be…

You can't judge someone who's just sleeping, right? Hakuryuu isn't guilty as long as he's sleeping. Alibaba doesn't think about what could happen if Hakuryuu wakes up. He's got time; Hakuryuu fought them all off, didn't he? Him and Kouen and Kouha and Koumei and Kougyoku? His magoi depletion will keep him out still.

Yes, there's time.

Alibaba makes the decision to find out exactly where they are. After, he's no clue what he'll do or how he'll do it, but he'll do what he can for now and that's this. Or this is that. Or whatever. He's too tired to be wondering over such trivial matters.

Alibaba sleeps again and feels like the time it's taken him to do just this little may have spanned a week.

When he's not looking, Hakuryuu's eyes flutter.


	3. Chapter 3

Alibaba has trekked down a dusty dirt road that makes the slums look orderly and leaves his calfs itchy and bitten and- oh shit that's a scorpion, careful- exhausted again, his many, many hours of sleep have done absolutely nothing to make him feel any better. He's taken a break twice to wave off nausea and sweats, when the heat got to him, in the shade of a few boulders or perched on the craggy mountains that hang around the edge of this island. The seagulls, which he has unaffectionately nicknamed rats with wings since they pecked and pulled at his rope and left him half strangled and gave him a cut for trying to defend himself (and yes he still does sting with the indignity of being reduced to battling birds.) trail behind him, waiting for him to drop the rocks in his hand, which they have now labeled as dangerous, as they very well should. The earthen gate in the distance is warped by the waves of heat so intense, they move the air and beyond it, Alibaba can see tiny, well tended thatched roofs. His mood picks up, he almost properly jogs towards it. The seagulls squawk and he shouts for them to hurry up in an excited rush.  
It's good to be on civilized ground again.

 _But not good enough to drop the rocks._

The earthen gate doesn't have the name of a village etched on it, nor are there names for the streets that they're on. There's little to it, a small bazaar in the center, huts of fishermen and a few smaller merchants and the dock where they all set out to the mainland, which Alibaba does not know the name of either. Alibaba's had his rags pulled at by about a dozen small children, and he now keeps a fist squarely wrapped around the front, where it ties, much to the dismay of several older women, who boldly call him handsome from their houses while admiring the muscle he's put on and the flash of his earrings and the quick smile that he has for anyone now, because it feels like it's been forever since he's seen so many people, even longer since he's seen ones who aren't planning for war and the small busy village is a balm for frayed nerves.

This place feels like the slums, and regarding all of the mess that's happened recently, it's a place that Alibaba feels like he could stay. He doesn't think about his kingdom, he doesn't think about Kouen and Koumei and their cherry boy jokes and slavery, he doesn't think about his master, or Sinbad or Ja'far, and the pang of guilt he has when he thinks about Mor and Aladdin and Olba and Toto… he stops thinking about them quickly.

He's just thinking about how much Hakuryuu would like it here.

Hakuryuu won't be asleep forever.

Alibaba hurries to find out where this is, comes carefully to the doorway of an elderly lady and her daughter, tying knots in a net.

"Excuse me, Ma'am?" Flattery will get you everywhere and Alibaba uses the entire repertoire of what he's learned to make him seem the handsome pauper in need. Which he is, but still, turning up the charm can't help when he's covered in bandages (that need to be changed, they itch) and caked in filth and sand. His breath stinks so bad that he can taste it. Nevertheless, Alibaba puts his shoulders back and combs his hair into something semi presentable and straightens up his ahoge, a point of charm (aha! Point!) and make a close lipped smile, not your best, but cute enough if he plays it right with the tilt of his head. Alibaba adjusts accordingly and moves in for the kill.

Not an actual kill, she's an old- oh whatever.

"Could you be bothered to tell me where I am?" His smile is a-go. Alibaba ruffles his hair carefully in a spot there isn't too much sand in. The sun radiates from his body. Excellent. According to plan. She has no choice but to be dazzled by his inner beauty and good looks and surely, certainly she will help him. A moment of triumph is on the verge.

The woman keeps tying her knots.

"E-excuse me?" Alibaba reaches forward, waves his hand downwards- this wasn't part of the plan, his eyebrows crumple in the center and the twitch in Alibaba's smile isn't under his control. She doesn't answer. The daughter, tilts her head up in her stead, a mighty scowl worn on her face that shatters Alibaba's smile in a dozen pieces. Such a sullen little girl.

"She's deaf."

"A-ah. Is that so?" The child scoffs and jabs her grandmother quite rudely with her elbow and the grandmother turns to her. She points to Alibaba and the crone pats her granddaughter on the head.

"Such a good boy, Sikander…" Oh. No wonder she- _he's_ so sullen. The longish hair, rounded face and rounder eyes probably make him feel uncomfortably girly. "Can I help you?"

With the woman staring at him, Alibaba is sure to use his lips to enunciate and convey his ideas very clearly.

"May you tell me where I am?"

"Tison, stupid." The old lady didn't say that. That was the boy. Alibaba wants to slap said boy.

Alibaba moves past the stupid remark and jerks his gaze toward the elderly lady who's returned to her knot tying in the shade peacefully. He wrenches it back to Sikander, who he glares at.

"How do you know, you little-"

" _I_ live here; you should be questioning yourself instead of me, you don't even know where you _are!"_

Alibaba takes pause. He's arguing with a toddler and he's losing. He gives up the ghost, but it doesn't mean he'll take the inane chatter of a child on such a serious matter. Surely this isn't Tison.

"Well if I'm in Tison, where's the plaque? Villages like this have plaques, right?" They do in Balbadd, every city gate has a bronzen one placed neatly on top and in clear view for any travelers' use.

"We don' need a fancy plaque. Just ask anyone around here where you are if you won't believe me. Now scram." Alibaba detests that he's following the command of someone who should be respectful to him, but he does scram because the clock is ticking.

Every single person. They all tell him the same damn thing.

It's Tison.

Holy shit, it's Tison.

And he feels so _stupid_ because how the _fuck_ is this even-? Alibaba clutches at his hair and bites his fingernails, kicks the wall of the house he's by and panics when dust flitters down because this is entire tiny island is like a world _monument_ and _shit_ people are _staring_. Alibaba darts down the alley and around a corner, sinks down against the wall and puts his head between his legs.

Sinbad's island. He's hiding on Sinbad's home island, a little island off of the coast of Parthevia, which _Alibaba isn't really even allowed in as a member of Kou_ with the world's inarguably second most dangerous man who is _asleep_ behind a _rock in an open shack._

He could cry. He could. But it wouldn't do much but waste time, which Alibaba has realized he has in short demand.

He makes a checklist in the dirt of all the time he has in reserve and how much of it he's wasted.

CLEANUP BEGAN- YESTERDAY AFTERNOON (3:30?)

RAN AWAY (YESTERDAY AFTERNOON- 4ISH?)

RENDEZVOUS TIME (7:00)

SEARCH TIME (?)

TIME NOW? HOW MUCH TIME DO I HAVE LEFT?!

Making lists feels good. This makes sense, there's order. Alibaba can do things if he has instruction. You make another list right next to the first one.

TO DO:

You grip your stomach, intending to soothe the ache of the cuts and scrapes there and your _arm_ starts hurting, the one swathed in filthy bandages, the one where your scar reopened.

MEDICAL ATTENTION

FIND OUT THE TIME AND DATE

HIDE HAKURYUU

You rub that out and after frantic, short thought, you fix it.

HIDE HAKURYUU _BETTER_

CALL ALADDIN AND MOR

GET BREAKFAST

Your stomach agrees with the last one. Time is ticking away, and you rub out your lists in the dirt, remembering that even if the words are gone, the tasks still have order and importance.

Nobody in Tison knows the date.

They know it's somewhere right after bass season and midway through wild peacock season, but much like the people in Balbadd's slums, the date isn't something that fishermen and simple merchants need. You give that search up pretty quickly, even though you probably could have found something if you searched a little harder, but you're not too hard on yourself because halfway through a conversation with a sailor pulling in nets, you notice it's getting hotter.

Which would be reasonable if it was still light out. But enough time has passed you by during your exploration of the town that it's actually getting dark.

You're really burning up. It's disconcerting and it's damn near fire, licking at your forehead, drawing a mist of sweat on your body and somewhere along the line, the world started rocking. Or is that you?

How didn't you notice any of this? The sun is getting in your eyes, hanging low in the sky behind the fisherman and his friends, your mind falls off track.

Such a pretty sunset. The colors blur together like a watercolor painting as Alibaba's body falls.


End file.
